MaxQuest

Ehh, arguably... if you want to land hard cc - you want hard cc, even if for just 3s such that you could recast it. The point is to prevent target from damaging your party completely. And if's not feasible... bye bye high-dps-heavy-cc party composition =( hello tank and spank style.

If you can't graze, you need to get 51 in order for swing to connect. And you had 46. I.e. you have 8% chance to miss. Just random thought: what if grazes were only disabled for auto-attacks, while spells and (optionally) abilities could graze like in PoE1?

> It seems that rogue class fails to match the lore description when it comes to versatility. > How to fix? By making them more versatile and allow them to easier evade incoming damage, without making them tanky: - give them some ability to temporary trade their damage output for a really big boost to evasion, deflection and disengagement. - some kind of AoE smoke bomb, that confuses everyone in area, and gives invisibility to any affected rogue (including enemies) for a number of seconds equal to their power level. > In the current iteration of beta, they are probably worse at ranged physical damage dealing than monks, black jackets and berserkers. > How to fix: by giving them some expert ranged specialization and some perception inspiration.

Yeap) And stating the obvious, uhm just in case: -50% recovery duration == +100% recovery speed Josh told us exactly so. Everything what affected recovery duration will affect reloading duration, in Deadfire, as well. While stuff that states reloading exclusively will affect only reloading. There is a thing though, reloading and recovery used different formulas in PoE1. So I was curious how it gonna be in the sequel. But had no time to test it yet. Well, looks like they forgot about: Source: transcript #6

That's hilarious)

The idea of an attack triggering another attack isn't new. Hand of Justice and Sword Specialization from WoW were especially notorious for this. It took Blizz 3 years to understand why is winning a proc-triggers-proc-triggers-proc-triggers-proc lottery is wrong through =) Imho this chain proccing should not be possible, and there are two ways to limit it: v1. make the triggered extra attack unable to proc other extra attacks v2. add a small internal cooldown. Do note though if the proc chance is lower than 100%, random() would have to be substituted by pseudo-random-distribution in order to keep the chance the same. But yes, the current chance of Swift Fury can be considered to be 100% - as you get it on every crit.

1). Sign dancing: All of those effects are positive, and because they all reduce the mouseovered "recovery time" they should be with minus sign. 2). Wrong sign: This was already reported for a overtuned penalty. I'd like to point the sign. Recovery penalty: increases recovery time -> and thus it should be +1100% and not -1100%. 3). There are several passives and abilities whose tooltips mention "+x% Action Speed", yet their effect is different: > DEX: +x% action speed -> affects attack/cast duration AND recovery duration > Potion of Relentless Striking: +51% action speed -> affects attack/cast duration AND recovery duration > Bloodlust: +20% action speed -> affects attack/cast duration AND recovery duration > Swift Strikes: +20% action speed -> only affects recovery > Frenzy: +25% action speed -> only affects recovery > Two-Weapon Style: -20% action speed -> only affects recovery | and btw this comes with the wrong sign as well, because speed is increased 4). When Bloodlust is active, it's mini-icon is missing on the character portrait. You can figure out that it's on only by mouseovering your currently equiped weapons' attack and recovery durations.

Yeah) I've seen that Dam already reported ability to get both Draining and Bitting whips, but he didn't mention that they stack.

Nice analysis KDubya. I'll add 2c though: Just wanted to note that Soul Blades can currently get +80%: image > +20% Soul Whipe > +40% Bitting Whip (yes it stack atm) > +20% Draining Whip (you can get both Bitting and Draining if you multi-class with cipher being second class) In current iteration the effect of might is multiplicative. In PoE1 you could make a low-average mig cipher focused on crowd-control only. But in Deadfire, MIG impact is way higher. Without RES giving concentration now, it can be completely dumped on all dps oriented characters. Putting those points in CON can potentially increase the survivability by a higher amount. But truth be told cipher really wants MIG and DEX right now. And even PER, as grazes impediment our dps way higher than in PoE1. Cipher powers are in really bad spot right now. It's way more efficient to just dump all the focus in Soul Annihilation than to keep waiting for casting and recovery durations. Btw: - Mind Blades would stop bouncing on miss in PoE1. Is it the same in Deadfire? - Has someone used Mind Wave and actually prone'd someone? I've tried it ~8 times. It was dealing damage to main target and that's it.

There is many interesting stuff, but some of it is not really fitting into Deadfire spell system. So I'll try to adjust them slightly: - Soul Storm (inspired by Mortality from Rift) - weaken and deal high raw damage to caster and all enemies around him in a 2m radius AoE, every 3s for 9s. Damage dealt to the enemies heals the caster. - Soul Armor (inspired by Fel and Demon Armor from WoW) - self buff - while the buff is active get a modal with two options: -- Robust Soul Armor: get Robust inspiration (+5 CON, +4 AR, +10hp/s) -- Brilliant Soul Armor: get Brilliant inspiration (+5 INT, +1 power level, 3rd effect) -- (and if one gets dispelled due to affliction, you can switch to another) - Chill to the Bones (inspired by Cold Feet from Dota) - hobble and deal freeze damage over time to an enemy target. If during 4s it doesn't remove the hobble affliction -> paralyze it for 8s. - Blood Magic (inspired by Blood Magic from Dragon Age) - while this modal is active casting a spell costs you 25% of max hp, but doesn't consume a spell usage.

^ Maybe. Though at time I got the sensation of multiplication. Was imagining that the initial idea was of DT being percentual, were incoming damage can be reduced up to 20%, with the exception of crush damage which could only be reduced up to 40%, making it sort of good vs high armored targets.

Tbh I haven't checked shifter yet. But yes, I would expect animal forms to deal more damage, partially because they are melee, and partially because fury gets also bonuses to elem spells. Compared to regular weapons though, fury auto-attack dps could be buffed a tiny bit.

Usually I'd say ciphers and late-game wizards. But in the current stage of beta... just dunno. Perhaps Fury, because of the new form (which is ranged btw) and their teleport ability. - Devout - Berserker and Hellwalker (haven't tried Shattered Pillar yet) - Soul Blade - but only if taken for the passives in a martial multi-class build, where all the focus is going into Annihilation - Goldpact - the loss of aura hits hard - Darcozzi Paladini - flame shield is too weak - Trickster - can he even make it into an optimal build? There should be another penalty, unrelated to dps. - Black Jacket - you lose constant recovery and get quick switch which is currently not worth it - Fury - I actually like Fury, their form and bonuses, but no access to restoration spells hurts, as healing is really important in Deadfire; increasing elemental claws damage, or +duration on kill could probably balance it out - Mage Slayer - can leave without scrolls... but potions and shorter buffs duration is a big hit Ex-vancian classes and cipher casters, especially if they are built as debilitators. Long casting durations, unreliable hard cc (no-graze, resistance downgrades), might being multiplicative bonus (this hits single-class cc ciphers with low might) are the main reasons while casting is so weak right now. Dislike: - long cast times, duh. I'm ok if there are some very slows spells like high-dmg Implossion, or if there is some sort of Pyroclasm that is same Fireball but x2 the duration / x3 the damage; but majority of already existing spells were pretty fine. - no grazes when casting or using abilities. I'm fine with auto-attacks being unable to graze... - lack of class-specific counter-resistance talents, e.g. Mental Overwhelming - negates the resistance to Intellect and Resolve afflictions. Precise Affliction - negates the resistance to Dexterity and Perception afflictions. Something like that.

Base focus gain was also reduced from 0.35 to 0.25 btw. The duration of some cipher powers is also affected by power level. @power level = 3, cipher gets: > +10% to duration of Tenuous Grasp and Whisper of Treason > +5% to duration of Mental Binding @power level = 5, cipher gets: > +20% to duration of Tenuous Grasp and Whisper of Treason > +15% to duration of Mental Binding > +5% to duration of Body Atonement This increase stacks multiplicatively with INT bonus. But still, it feels like power level affecting the duration of spells belongs to the old multiclass system; as currently cc-oriented characters are too weak in the early-mid game.

Well, as long as the information is displayed by the game (and is complete and not faulty) I see no problem in figuring things out, including the answers on the mentioned "should I attack with something else", "does it matter", etc. PoE1 had it's percs when it was comming to AR system. But yeah, I know that Josh wanted to migrate to percentual damage reduction. Even in PoE1 there are some traces of Damage Thresholds in the source code, by which one could figure out that someone had multiplicative and not additive reduction in mind. Personally I don't really mind, is it DR or AR, is it linear, gradual or all-or-nothing (although having minor sweet spots is always nice). But I'd like all weapons to be equally useful, i.e.: in one situation it's clearly better to use this dps weapon, in another this dps weapon, but overall they to have the same usefulness. So far though it's kinda obvious that if one is into melee dps, he will try to have enough Pen with a Great Sword or Quarterstaff, than having to fallback to Estocs.

So true. I'm deeply disappointed by the current state of ciphers tbh. After having 4 out of 5 MCs being ciphers in PoE1, I must say that my favorite playstyle of highdps + hard cc ciphers is pointless in Deadfire, because of: - doubled and in some cases quadrupled cast durations - lack of reliability. In PoE1 if you had acc by 15 higher than your target's defense - you could be sure that your cc will land and you will disable the enemy completely. While in Deadfire lack of grazes on spellcasts + might/dexterity/intellect resistances severely devalue hard cc powers. Now couple this with the already mentioned slow casting times, and you get to the point where you'd be better straight auto-attacking. P.S. Here are few power casting + recovery durations for reference: P.P.S. It's funny now how I was finding Ringleader cast time being simply not worth it, and as result have used it only 3 times tops across all the runs.

Someone already fixed that) I think comparing each one - would take too long. Plus some weapons seem to be more into utility department. Let's just take 3 damage oriented weapons atm, with different penetration values but same attack/recovery durations.

Estocs deal 38% less damage than Great Swords against 0 AR. So it's understandable that they can come on top in dps, only when Great Swords deal minimal damage due to penetration thresholds. Estocs (in their current iteration) could be situationally worth it under the current all-or-nothing system, as there are situations when you have to choose: [deal 70% less damage with the Great Sword], or [switch to Estoc and deal only 38% less damage instead]. Under the new gradual system, base values for weapons would have to be revised. But in order to do so, lets list the weapons and their effects first Here's a spreadsheet I started. Feel free to add missing stuff, as it's faster together. It's actually a bit harder to balance =) Imagine there are [high damage, low pen] and [low damage, high pen] weapons. In this game you can get +4 PEN buff, + PEN talents, and also lower enemy AR by 4. And if you can achieve final PEN >= enemy AR with a [high damage, low pen] weapon for majority of encounters, then it becomes strictly better. That's also the reason behind of dealing extra damage when you have penetration overflow. But yeah, 'harder to balance' does not mean impossible) Understood that. But have to mention that the first quoted sentence makes it harder to arrive to two well balanced ends of the spectrum. Atm estocs are only worth it in a very tiny PEN-AR window. As Dr. Hieronymous Alloy noticed specifically when you are at -2,-3,-4 or -5 deficit. That's an interval of length 4. And having any spell that increases your PEN or decreases enemy AR by 4, rules Estocs out completely, by making a Great Sword an always better solution. And ss you can see in the comments, this was also mentioned by KDubya, and Gromnir (if I understood him right, although in his case I'm never sure) Now I must say that, it's still possible to make high pen weapons worthy (i.e. equally viable), while not having bonus damage above 100%. But this would require shifting the resting point. Under the current system you always wanted to have PEN higher than AR and deal 100% of damage. What I am thinking is shifting this thing to the left. Where it's ok/viable/or even optimal to have lower PEN with some weapons and deal 70-80% damage. While high pen weapons would be able to push you up to 100%. Now the question is: v1. do we want [high dmg, low pen] and [low dmg, high pen] weapons deal approximately the same final damage vs any target? For example: Great Sword has 40% higher base damage but only 70% of damage goes through (against low armored target); vs estoc that has 100% of damage going through. 1.4 * 0.7 ~= 1; or another example: Great Sword has only 40% going through high AR; while estoc has 55% going through: 1.4 * 0.4 = 0.56 ~= 0.55 v2. or we want [high dmg, low pen] to be effective vs one group of enemies; and [low dmg, high pen] weapons effective vs other group of enemies?

Thanks aartz! You're the man)

Interesting. I am trying to figure out what would be the perfect PEN thresholds that would satisfy a set of conditions/expectations set by the forumers. And your statement regarding "if there is no armor, penetration can't do anything" - kinda heavily affects the viability of high pen weapons. I'd like to clarify: - you expect two similar attacks against naked character, but one with quite higher PEN, deal same damage? - (same thing rephrased) you are against dealing bonus damage with stuff like estocs and stilletos when your PEN is much higher than target's AR?

Could you share the console command? I have re-checked the wiki and the finds thread to no avail)

Kind of weird reason to like/not, buy/not a game. Imho, there can be: - a good game with classes - a good game with classless system - a bad game with classes - a bad game with classless system So why deprive yourself from the first option? =) As for classes vs classless in general... I want to believe there can be someday a classless system, deep and balanced, where classes (or rather archetypes) are emerging by themselves because of power-building sweet spots. As for which one the player will choose - will depend not on character creation or favorite-of-the-month, but his own preference and playstyle. But until we are there - I'm perfectly fine with having classes. And even more with Kaedrin pack) Loved the amount of builds you can come up with in NWN2. I liked many things about NWN2... except the Isaac's Greater Missile Storm and AB being king though.

Now that's nice) And rather smart: instead of trying to guess the right PEN thresholds that would suit community, let the community figure them out by themselves. This, coupled with the adjusted attack/recovery durations for spells and 1h weapons gonna be a good step forward in finding the "combat just feels right" grail. P.S. It would be great if new patch also included some sort of target dummies. Could be even simple spores (stationary, with low attack, high hp and without abilities). If we could spawn them via console, it would ease testing stuff.

Having stats attached to a race and country, was giving possibility to have a 2 MIG character - i.e. if you didn't need MIG, you could get a +1 to a different stat. And who doesn't love free attributes? And to a bit lesser degree of impact ,it allowed you to get 20 in other stat of your choice. Now speaking of backgrounds... it allowed you to select a bonus to the skills you really need. And it was kinda important, because going from 9 mechanics to 10 would normally require you 10 skill points. So if you are intending to max mech, selecting difter, laborer or scientisc could economize you up to 9 skill points which could be invested elsewhere.

Ye, it takes the pros of both approaches (5% gradual, and semi-gradual with bumps), but at the expense of complexity. It might be hard to remember at what thresholds exactly these bumps are located. Sweet) So everybody can play around with the thresholds, arrive to the right feel and share it. We could even make a straw poll latter or something. Hey, do you think you could code a system like MaxQuest proposed in this thread? It would be nice to give it a try. It doesn't look like it's possible atm. There are 3 thresholds, and I guess all are multiplicative only. But it gonna be possible under the new system (which adds support for flat steps). I think it will look something like this: Btw, am looking at Josh's values and imho it's already a solid improvement over the current state. It's no longer all-or-nothing, but ye it's still more abrupt than the posted suggestions. There is also a question: do we want to deal bonus damage to very high AR creatures, provided that our PEN is even higher? For reference: under the current system we would need 40 PEN vs 20 AR targets, in order to get the x1.3 multiplier.